Marjorie Beeghly

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• PhD
• Professor at Wayne State University

Background During the still-face (SF) episode of the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm (FFSF), mothers are instructed to remain still, unresponsive, and silent. However, some participants do not comply with these instructions, and researchers typically exclude them from their analyses. These mothers report feelings of anxiety and discomfort during S...

A central goal in the field of developmental psychopathology is to evaluate the complex, dynamic transactions occurring among biological, psychological, and broader social-cultural contexts that predict adaptive and maladaptive outcomes across ontogeny. Here, I briefly review research on the effects of a history of childhood maltreatment on parenta...

Patterns of infant emotional regulation Coherence and incoherence of early infant interactive behavior Face-to-face still-face paradigm Maternal sensitivity and infant cooperation A B S T R A C T Infant regulatory behavior develops since birth and impacts their early social interactions. Infants differ in the relative coherence and incoherence of t...

Mother-infant interactions form a strong basis for emotion regulation development in infants. These interactions can be affected by various factors, including maternal postnatal anxiety. Electroencephalography (EEG) hyperscanning allows for simultaneous assessment of mother-infant brain-to-behavior association during stressful events, such as the s...

A growing body of research shows that early attachment relationships are foun-dational for children's later developmental and psychosocial outcomes. However, findings are mixed regarding whether preterm birth predicts later attachment, but insecurity is generally more prevalent among infants at higher medical and/or social/familial risk. This longi...

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated mitigation efforts created stress that threatened parent and child well-being. Conditions that increase stress within families heighten the likelihood of child abuse, but social support can mitigate the impact. This short-term investigation considered whether cumulative risk, COVID-19 specific risk, and emotiona...

Infants exhibit flexibly organized configurations of facial, vocal, affective, and motor behavior during caregiver-infant interactions that convey convergent messages about their internal states and desires. Prior work documents that greater cross-modal discrepancy at 4 months predicts disorganized attachment. Here, we evaluated whether: very prete...

Few studies have examined whether maternal caregiving representations are associated with maternal reflective functioning (MRF), especially when MRF is evaluated longitudinally beginning in pregnancy. This study addresses this gap by evaluating whether prenatal and postnatal MRF are associated with mothers’ caregiving representations assessed at 7...

Prior research described three stable patterns of organized behavior employed by infants to manage stressful interactive situations with their mothers in the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm (FFSF) at 3 and 9 months postpartum. The current longitudinal study expands this research by examining the extent to which these patterns predict infants’ late...

Remote schooling due to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) created profound challenges for families. In this investigation, we examined parents’ depression and anxiety during remote schooling and their associations with parents’ reports of school support. We also evaluated indirect and interactive (i.e., moderation) associations. Participants were...

Infants born preterm (<37 gestational weeks, GW) are at increased risk for regulatory difficulties and insecure attachment. However, the association between infants' regulatory behavior patterns and their later attachment organization is understudied in the preterm population. We addressed this gap by utilizing a Portuguese sample of 202 mother-inf...

Three infant regulatory behavior patterns have been identified during the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm (FFSF) in prior research samples: a Social-Positive Oriented pattern (i.e., infants exhibit predominantly positive social engagement), a Distressed-Inconsolable pattern (i.e., infants display conspicuous negative affect that persists or increa...

Objective The study examined whether mother–child reciprocity across increasingly challenging contexts moderated the association between household chaos and early childhood behavior problems. Background Living in a chaotic household is associated with behavioral dysregulation in childhood. An important goal in discordant household contexts is to e...

This study describes maternal and infant contributions to dyadic affective exchanges during the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP) in an understudied mostly low-income sample. One hundred eleven mothers and their 7-month-old infants were videotaped during the SFP to analyze how a social stressor affects mother-infant positive and negative affective exchange...

Maternal oxytocin is connected to aspects of parenting including sensitivity, warmth, positive affect, and affectionate touch. Oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) polymorphisms are associated with circulating oxytocin levels, altered brain activity, and parenting behaviors. This study aimed to replicate prior work on OXTR single-nucleotide polymorphisms...

Experiencing depressive symptoms in the postpartum period is common among new parents. When symptoms are severe or chronic, they can affect parents’ daily functioning, parenting practices, and interactions with their infants. In turn, impaired parent-infant interactions contribute to adverse developmental outcomes for infants of depressed parents....

The current study addressed two aims: (1) to describe different patterns of infant regulatory behavior during the Face‐to‐Face Still‐Face (FFSF) paradigm at 3 months of age and (2) to identify specific, independent predictors of these patterns from an a priori set of demographic, infant (e.g., temperament), and maternal (e.g., sensitivity) variable...

The current study sampled students from a college in the United States Midwest, and examined the independent predictive strength of a variety of intrapersonal factors (alcohol use, procrastination, perfectionism, perceived level of stress, and coping style) with academic adjustment while controlling for academic motivation. These relations were als...

This study examined the stability of three patterns of infant regulatory behavior identified in the face-to-face still-face (FFSF) paradigm at 3 and 9 months-social-positive oriented, distressed-inconsolable, and self-comfort oriented-and whether variations in infants' heart-rate were correlated with them. Although some studies have examined the st...

Functional circuits of the human brain emerge and change dramatically over the second half of gestation. It is possible that variation in neural functional system connectivity in utero predicts individual differences in infant behavioral development, but this possibility has yet to be examined. The current study examines the association between fet...

The Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) is a widely used in the neurobehavioral assessment of neonates in clinical practice and research. Lester's data reduction system for the NBAS items is the most often used in research, but the few factor analytic studies carried out with it leave gaps in its validation. The current study aimed to test...

In prior research with healthy preterm infants, Fuertes, Lopes dos Santos, Beeghly, & Tronick (2006, 2009) identified three patterns of infant regulatory behavior in the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP) at 3 months corrected age: Positive Other-Directed, Negative Other-Directed, and Self-Directed. These patterns were associated with infant birth character...

The current study evaluated whether maternal insightfulness can buffer the negative influence of postpartum stressful life events on maternal parenting behaviors. Participants were 125 mother–infant dyads (55% boys) who present a subsample of a larger longitudinal study on maternal maltreatment during childhood and its impact on peripartum maternal...

As originally conceived and still practiced today, attachment theory is limited in its ability to recognize and understand cross-cultural variations in human attachment systems, and it is restrictive in its inclusion of cross-species comparisons. This chapter argues that attachment must be reconceived to account for and include cross-cultural and c...

Ideas and claims about children’s development (e.g., concerning attachment relationships) that have found broad acceptance in the academic community have impacted the development of policy in governmental and international organizations. These accepted ideas and claims, in turn, have been incorporated into practice and services provided to families...

Very preterm birth (<32 weeks of gestation) heightens the risk for developmental and behavioral problems, but individual outcomes vary greatly. We evaluated whether mother-toddler dyadic interaction quality, assessed longitudinally at 14, 20, and 30 months (corrected), could account for unique variance in very preterm and full-term children’s menta...

The postpartum period brings a host of biopsychosocial, familial, and economic changes, which may be challenging for new mothers, especially those with trauma histories. Trauma-exposed women are at heightened risk for psychiatric symptomatology and reduced quality of life. The current study sought to evaluate whether a set of hypothesized promotive...

The goal of this study was to evaluate whether there are sex differences in children's vulnerability to caregiving risk, as indexed by trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms assessed from 2 to 18 months’ postpartum, and children's rated attachment security in toddlerhood, adjusting for maternal social support and demographic risk. Analyses ut...

Background: The postpartum period represents a major transition in the lives of many women, a time when women are at increased risk for the emergence of psychopathology including depression and PTSD. The current study aimed to better understand the unique contributions of clinically significant postpartum depression, PTSD, and comorbid PTSD/depres...

Background: This study examined the bidirectional nature of mother-infant positive and negative emotional displays during social interactions across multiple tasks among postpartum women accounting for childhood maltreatment severity. Additionally, effects of maternal postpartum psychopathology on maternal affect and effects of task and emotional...

In the present longitudinal study, we investigated attachment quality in Portuguese mother–infant and in father–infant dyads, and evaluated whether attachment quality was related to parental sensitivity during parent–infant social interaction or to the amount of time each parent spent with the infant during play and in routine caregiving activities...

Whether intrauterine cocaine exposure (IUCE) explains unique variance in psychiatric functioning among school age children, even after controlling for other biological and social risk factors, has not been fully delineated. As part of a longitudinal birth cohort study of children with and without IUCE, we conducted and analyzed data based on struct...

This study characterized the longitudinal evolution of HPA axis functioning from 7 to 16 months of age and identified individual and environmental factors that shape changes in HPA axis functioning over time. Participants were 167 mother-infant dyads drawn from a larger longitudinal study, recruited based on maternal history of being maltreated dur...

Early childhood behavior problems may indicate risk for subsequent psychopathology (Shaw, Gilliom, Ingoldsby, & Nagin, Developmental Psychology, 39, 2003, 189). There is some evidence to suggest that boys and girls may be differentially susceptible to postpartum risk factors that predict problem behaviors in early childhood (Kochanska, Coy, & Murra...

There is growing evidence that "secure-base scripts" are an important part of the cognitive underpinnings of internal working models of attachment. Recent research in middle class samples has shown that secure-base scripts are linked to maternal attachment-oriented behavior and child outcomes. However, little is known about the correlates of secure...

This study examined relationships among maternal reflective functioning, parenting, infant attachment, and demographic risk in a relatively large (N = 83) socioeconomically diverse sample of women with and without a history of childhood maltreatment and their infants. Most prior research on parental reflective functioning has utilized small homogen...

Neuropsychological processes such as attention and memory contribute to children's higher-level cognitive and language functioning and predict academic achievement. The goal of this analysis was to evaluate whether level of intrauterine cocaine exposure (IUCE) alters multiple aspects of preadolescents' neuropsychological functioning assessed using...

Early biobehavioral regulation, a major influence of later adaptation, develops through dyadic interactions with caregivers. Thus, identification of maternal characteristics that can ameliorate or exacerbate infants' innate vulnerabilities is key for infant well-being and long-term healthy development. The present study evaluated the influence of m...

Despite a plethora of research on parenting and infant attachment, much less is known about the contributions of parenting to preschool attachment, particularly within different racial groups. This study seeks to build on the extant literature by evaluating whether similar associations between parenting and attachment can be observed in African Ame...

A dynamic systems analytical model was used to characterize infant-caregiver regulatory dynamics. Though stable, there was an increase in dyadic flexibility following a perturbation. Dyadic flexibility was positively related to infant negativity during the perturbation. Findings were qualified by infant sex and maternal depressive symptoms.

The study of “socioemotional” development reflects the intertwining nature of the processes of social and emotional growth. In this chapter, we focus on social and emotional development of infants and toddlers. We begin by outlining the contextual frames that inform our review: psychobiological, relational, and cultural. Emotions have been referred...

This special issue highlights research that responded to the Society for Research on Child Development's Ethics and Racial Issues Committee's call for articles on the positive development of minority children. The call was motivated by committee's goal of promoting developmental research on ethnic minority children and adolescents. The articles in...

The goal of this study was to evaluate whether intrauterine exposure to cocaine, alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana was associated with unique variance in children's academic achievement test scores after controlling for other substance exposures and contextual variables. Academic achievement scores (Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Second Edition...

Studies using the Emotional Availability Scales have burgeoned in the past decade. The collection of papers included in this Special Section represents the latest innovations in research with this paradigm. Consistent with a developmental psychopathology perspective, these papers evaluate emotional availability in a variety of typical, at-risk, int...

This study describes the developmental trajectories of language skills in infants with substantiated maltreatment histories over a 5-year period and evaluates the effect of three different custodial placements on their language trajectories over time: in-home (remaining in the care of the biological parent/parents), nonkin foster care, and nonparen...

Past studies found three types of infant coping behaviour during Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm (FFSF): a Positive Other-Directed Coping; a Negative Other-Directed Coping and a Self-Directed Coping. In the present study, we investigated whether those types of coping styles are predicted by: infants’ physiological responses; maternal representatio...

The growth of infants' regulatory capacities is foundational to the capacity for resilience. Variations in the quality of early social--emotional experience can promote or undermine infants' regulatory capacities. Such capacities are also dynamically sculpted by the relationships among infant, parent, and contextual--cultural factors. Brief periods...

Two studies are presented which describe how mothers talk about internal states with language-learning toddlers during social interaction. In study 1, mothers' internal state language was assessed longitudinally when toddlers were 13, 20 and 28 months of age. In study 2, mothers' internal state language addressed to prelinguistic children with Down...

The purpose of this study was to correlate 2-dimensional magnetic resonance (MR) measurements of lateral ventricular width and 3-dimensional measurements of lateral ventricular and supratentorial parenchymal volumes to postnatal outcomes in fetuses with ventriculomegaly. A total of 307 fetuses (mean gestational age, 26.0 weeks; range, 15.7-39.4 wee...

Traditionally, developmental psychology, occupational/physical therapy, and behavioral pediatrics view similar infant behaviors from temperament, sensory processing, or neurobehavioral theoretical perspectives. This study examined the relations between similar and unique summary scores of three infant assessments (Early Infancy Temperament Question...

Individual differences in adolescents' executive functioning are often attributed either to intrauterine substance exposure or to adolescents' own substance use, but both predictors typically have not been evaluated simultaneously in the same study. This prospective study evaluated whether intrauterine drug exposures, the adolescents' own substance...

In this chapter, we argue that maternal sensitivity is best understood as a dyadic construct dynamically affected by transacting factors emerging from multiple levels of influence. Using principles from systems theory, our perspective focuses on maternal (caregiver) sensitivity as a component of the infant-caregiver communication system. We posit t...

We argue that infant meaning-making processes are a central mechanism governing both typical and pathological outcomes. Infants, as open dynamic systems, must constantly garner information to increase their complexity and coherence. They fulfill this demand by making nonverbal “meaning”—affects, movements, representations—about themselves in relati...

To characterize the delivery and postnatal neurodevelopmental outcomes of fetuses referred for ventriculomegaly (VM). Under an internal review board-approved protocol, pregnant women were referred for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) after sonographic diagnosis of VM and classified into one of four diagnostic groups: Group 1, normal central nervous...

In the newborn period, infants prenatally exposed to cocaine and other drugs show low scores on the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale. Beyond that period, research is limited on the effects of prenatal drug exposure on neurobehavioral functioning. In this study we compared infants exposed to cocaine and other drugs and control infants from low s...

This longitudinal study evaluated whether the level of intrauterine cocaine exposure (IUCE) or the interaction between IUCE and contextual variables was related during middle childhood to executive functioning, as assessed with the Stroop Color-Word and Rey Osterrieth Complex Figure tests. The Stroop Interference score measures verbal inhibitory co...

In this longitudinal study of a Portuguese sample of healthy preterm infants, the aim was to identify specific, independent predictors of infant-mother attachment status from a set of variables including maternal education, maternal representations’ of infant temperament, infant regulatory behavior (coping), and mothers’ interactive behavior in fre...

The present study evaluated the interactive behavior of three groups of mothers and their 3-month-old infants in the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm. The mothers had either a clinical diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD, n = 33) with no comorbidity, a clinical diagnosis of panic disorder (PD, n = 13) with no comorbidity, or no clinical dia...

This study evaluated similarities and differences in 2½ year-old children's reactions to maternal unavailability during a brief still-face episode and subsequent resumption of social interaction during a reunion episode. Seventy mothers and children were videotaped in the Toddler Still-Face paradigm (T-SF), an age appropriate adaptation of the Face...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether children with a history of disorganized attachment in infancy were more likely than children without a history of disorganized attachment to exhibit symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at school age following trauma exposure. The sample consisted of 78 8.5-year-old children from a large...

The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate the effect of a set of factors from multiple levels of influence: infant temperament, infant regulatory behavior, and maternal sensitivity on infant's attachment. Our sample consisted of 48 infants born prematurely and their mothers. At 1 and 3 months of age, mothers described their infants' beh...

The goal of this study was to evaluate the interactions of mothers with normative or high levels of depressive symptomatology on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) and their 3-month-old infants. Although successful mutual regulation of affect is critical to children's socio-emotional development, little is known about the...

Little is known about rates and correlates of suicidal ideation among nonclinical samples of preadolescents from low-income urban backgrounds. Using the Children's Depression Inventory, we measured suicidal ideation in 131 preadolescent urban children (49% female, 90% African American/Caribbean) participating in an ongoing prospective longitudinal...

In this paper, recent studies of the effects of prenatal cocaine abuse and other toxic substances on infant behavior and development during early infancy are critically reviewed. The inevitable conclusion from this review is that compromising main effects of single drugs such as cocaine on infant behavior and development have not been reliably esta...

There is a pressing need for the early and accurate identification of young children at risk for language and other developmental disabilities and the provision of timely, age-appropriate intervention, as mandated by Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Research has shown that early intervention is effective for many language...

To evaluate whether prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE), or the interaction between PCE and contextual variables, is associated with children's language at age 6 and 9.5 years, adjusting for relevant covariates. Analyses were based on 160 low-income, urban children from a prospective study who completed a standardized language assessment at 6 and 9.5 y...

The purpose of this study was to examine qualities of caregiver-child interactions during daily activities of healthy children born full-term and of children born prematurely and very low birth weight with and without white matter disorder. Three groups of 12 caregiver-child dyads, representing three levels of child biological risk, were matched on...

This analysis was designed to determine whether prenatal cocaine exposure is related to children's standardized cognitive test scores at age 4 years after control for relevant covariates. Masked examiners using the WPPSI-R assessed ninety-one 4-year-old children with prenatal cocaine exposure and 79 children of comparable demographic background who...

This prospective longitudinal study was designed to evaluate whether the four-month Movement Assessment of Infants (MAI), predicted two-year cognitive and motor developmental status measured by the Mental (MDI) and Psychomotor (PDI) Scales of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID). The subjects were 134 infants born at term who were conside...

To evaluate the direct effects of prenatal cocaine exposure and prenatal opiate exposure on infant mental, motor, and behavioral outcomes longitudinally between 1 and 3 years old. As part of a prospective, longitudinal, multisite study, the Bayley Scales of Infant Development II were administered to 1227 infants who were exposed to cocaine (n = 474...

Objectives: The goals of this longitudinal study were to evaluate 1) the prevalence and stability of high depressive symptom levels during the first 18 months postpartum in a sample of otherwise healthy Black mothers varying in socio-economic status and 2) the relation of sociodemographic variables and level of socio-demographic risk to maternal d...

The objective of this longitudinal prospective cohort study was to determine whether level of prenatal cocaine exposure, or the interaction between level of prenatal cocaine exposure and contextual risk variables, was associated with a higher rate of infant-caregiver insecure attachment and disorganized attachment, or with alterations in infant cry...